Ezekial Knight, during his Alabama football days. (Rolltide.com)Remember former Ala­bama football player Ezekial Knight?

Zeke has this condition.

You may have heard about it. Let him explain.

“I never take ‘no’ for an answer,” he said.

No matter how bad the news, no matter how pow­erful the person delivering the word, Knight doesn’t want to hear it.

He didn’t want to hear it from Alabama coach Nick Saban, or from doctors at Alabama and beyond, when they wouldn’t let him play football there as a senior in 2008 because of a birth de­fect that left a hole in his heart.

Knight called that news, coming as it did after he’d already had surgery to cor­rect the defect, “a hard pill to swallow.”

Now, after earning his degree at Alabama, after learning that aspirin con­trols his condition, after playing one last college football season at Division II Stillman, the 6-foot-4, 230-pound linebacker doesn’t want to hear any­one tell him he can’t play in the National Football League.

The NFL? That’s right.

Knight wants to play pro football.

Never mind that he didn’t get invited to the Se­nior Bowl or the NFL Com­bine. Or that he’s 25 years old. Or that several lists of potential draftees rank him as overall prospect No. 999, which is as low as those rankings go.

“I’m glad I’m off the ra­dar,” Knight said.

“When I come back on it, everybody will know who I am.”

Everybody from his home town of Wedowee to his col­lege town of Tuscaloosa should know that he’s not just dreaming.

His agent, John Phillips, said Knight has received medical clearance from a neurologist and a cardiolog­ist.

He’s been working out in Jacksonville, Fla., and stay­ing at his agent’s house there, “eating me out of house and home,” Phillips joked.

Come Monday, Knight and another of Phillips’ cli­ents, Alabama’s Eryk And­ers, will start a workout pro­gram at Competitive Edge Sports in Atlanta to be ready if opportunity knocks.

Knight did play in the East Coast Bowl in Virginia, an all-star game for draft hopefuls from lower divi­sions, but he received his most promising news last week.

His agent said Alabama has agreed to let Knight work out for NFL scouts and execs at one of the school’s two Pro Days in March.

“That was the best news,” Knight said. “It’s like home­coming for me. I started there, and now I’ll finish there.”

Most people thought Knight was finished at Ala­bama and with football in July of 2008, when the school declared him medi­cally disqualified.

In a statement at the time, Saban said Knight “has had extensive medical evalua­tions by numerous physi­cians, all of which con­cluded that it was no longer in his best interest to play football.”

Knight’s health first be­came a concern in Septem­ber of 2006, when a team­mate found him curled up on the hood of his car, hav­ing trouble breathing.

After the 2006 season, UAB doctors discovered Knight had a birth defect called a Patent Foramen Ovale, or PFO. Normally, the opening between the upper chambers of the heart closes after birth. For Knight, that hole hadn’t closed.

Surgery seemed to correct the problem, but after play­ing the entire 2007 season at linebacker, Knight started suffering from headaches and exhaustion.

That led to more tests and to Alabama’s decision to medically disqualify him.

Phillips said that Knight has discovered the importance of aspirin, the only medication he needs. His agent recently noticed that Knight had ``the biggest bottle of aspirin you've ever seen.''

Since leaving the Crimson Tide, Knight finished his un­dergraduate degree at Ala­bama and sat out the 2008 season. He then received medical clearance and an NCAA waiver to play the 2009 season at Stillman.

“I didn’t have any prob­lems,” he said. “That was a big step.”

It also could help that Knight isn’t the first football player who was sidelined for a time by a PFO. Former New England linebacker Tedy Bruschi was diagnosed with the condi­tion after suffering a mild stroke in February of 2005.

Bruschi underwent sur­gery, and eight months after the stroke, he was back on the field for the Patriots. He played four more seasons before retiring last August.

Knight just wants the same chance that Bruschi got.

“In my heart,” he said, “I’ve been an NFL player since I was 7.”

Funny thing about Knight’s heart.

The heart that beats in his chest almost ended his ca­reer.

The heart that won’t let him quit may get him where he wants to go, no matter how many people say no.

All he needs is one NFL team to say yes and give him a chance.

“If he makes it, and he’s giving it everything he can,” Phillips said, “that movie will be better than Michael Oher’s movie any day.”